FeaturesBlock

While big data has infiltrated our everyday lives, Lev Manovich and his collaborators have explored the data of everyday life as a window on social transformation. We discuss his latest work: The Exceptional and the Everyday: 144 Hours in Kiev, a portrait of political upheaval in the Ukraine constructed from thousands of Instagram photos taken over a six day period during the revolution in February of 2014. Lev Manovich will deliver a keynote as part of the upcoming Art of the Networked Practice online symposium, March 31 – April 2, 2015, a free Internet symposium in collaboration with Furtherfield.

Nathan Jones interviews glitch artist Antonio Roberts about his credentials, where the field of glitch art is going, and his latest work using error and atrophy to engage in dialogues about ownership and copyright.

Rob Myers takes a look at how we can subvert the operation of the algorithms that the Digital Humanities, corporations and governments use to read, see, and draw conclusions about human expression by treating them as the true audience for contemporary art and literature.

Randall Packer interviews jonCates about his unique synthesis of language and media, his critique of technology, and how glitch, in all of its multifarious manifestations, has powered his work, functioning as a force for uniting artists, students, and communities in collective activity. JonCates will deliver a keynote as part of the upcoming Art of the Networked Practice online symposium, March 31 – April 2, 2015, a free Internet symposium in collaboration with Furtherfield.

Marc Garrett and Ruth Catlow interview McKenzie Wark ahead of his keynote speach, Capture All_Play at Transmediale 2015 in Berlin this year. They discuss with him how our everyday lives have been infiltrated by competitive game-like mechanisms, that he described more than a decade ago.

An appreciation of David Daniels, the great shape-poet, who died in May 2008. one of those figures who straddles the divide between digital and pre-digital art and literature. His art is about liberation, uninhibited outpouring, spontaneity and fun. Co-published by Furtherfield and The Hyperliterature Exchange.

From Vooks to ebooks, from the iPad to the Google settlement, and from print-on-demand to new styles of writing, Edward Picot attempts to analyse the effects of the digital revolution on the publishing industry, and to make some educated guesses about how things may develop in the next few years.

In Part Four of his series on classic Videogames and their appropriation into contemporary art. Mathias Jansson explores Pac-Man, with a selection of examples of how the game has impacted artists' work and contemporary art culture.

The New Aesthetic is a new art meme, originally defined by James Bridle as a method of collecting materials which point towards an infatuation with the agency of computing. Although it has existed in it's current form since last year, it's sudden emergence has set off plenty of scholars, writers and artists into profuse flusters. But here's the question - can the new aesthetic be more than a meme? More to the point, does it want to be? Is it capable of a direction?

Lawrence Bird interviews Ricardo Dominguez about The Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT), a hand-held device to aid crossers of the Mexico-US border. A project created by the University of California at San Diego’s Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) 2.0/b.a.n.g. lab, and still evolving today. It includes input from other members of the collective: Brett Stalbaum, Micha Cardenas, Amy Sara Carroll and Elle Mehrmand.

Exhibitions and Events

Is it really OK for corporations to compile and sell personal profiles so intimate that they know more about us than our loved ones do? Is 'smart' economy an all-round bad idea purely to be defended against or is there the possibility of 'smart' technology and smart systems co-designed by and for women themselves and a respectful way to manage 'big data'?

This two-day event by Fossbox will explore these questions around surveillance, gender and society in a practical privacy workshop followed by a day of discussion, making and performance.

This is the fourth and final part of the Digital Futures: Money No Object series of events. The session will be led by Brett Scott author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money, followed by an evening public showcase. It will be a currency prototyping brainstorm, where we will explore whether a currency or alternative exchange system might be developed for and by a distributed network of artists to support and promote experimental, open and free practices.

A panel – chaired by Ruth Catlow and joined by Steve Fletcher and Lindsay Taylor – that discusses an electrifying cluster of controversies: the subversive intentions and emancipatory motivations of many media artists; the needs and concerns of public art collectors and conservators; the opportunities for private collectors and the interests of high art market speculation.

Furtherfield is a Not-for-Profit Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales under the Company No.7005205.Registered business address: Ballard Newman, Apex House, Grand Arcade, Tally Ho Corner, London N12 0EH.

Background image: Original image by WallpapersWide.com. Remix version by Olga P Massanet (Furtherfield). Both the original and remix are licensed under: CC BY-SA 3.0.